Muay Sangha India

 About Teacher

My Teacher: KRU PEDRO SOLLANA VILLALOBOS

Kru Pedro Villalobos. Originally from Madrid, Spain, Kru Pedro had been both a Muay Thai champion and a Theravada Buddhist monk. He left the monkhood to continue his practice and teaching of the sacred art of Muay Thai Sankha. In a small teak house, on a quiet soi, behind Wat Suandok, in Chiang Mai, Kruu Pedro sends thanks up to his spirit teachers, asking them to open his mind so that he might be a better teacher of the Thai martial arts. "I teach when I can and I follow when I can."

Kru Pedro teaches his students his own form of philosophical wisdom, which we call Pedroisms. He says ,"I like people who walk, not people who talk."meaning he preferred monks who helped people, rather than monks who talked about helping people. In the fighting arena, he meant that he preferred fighters to people who only talked about fighting.

Another Pedroism was "What you practice, you will become good at." He believed that practicing wrong made you wrong. "If we are Muay Thai fighters, we must run. But if we only run, we will be runners, not fighters."Kru Pedro says, "Muay Thai is not a sport “ We don't fight for the ring. I think two people fighting is not a sport. I don't like it. But if they want to, my students can go to the ring to learn to defend themselves."

"We must be hard on the outside and soft on the inside."

"Without self-respect you cannot learn. Without compassion, you cannot teach."

"If People do wrong, no problem, as long as you want to improve. If you want to change your life I will help you."

"Those who follow the religion and practice inside can teach, but he must have understanding, if not, he could never be a great teacher."

"Step one is stop dong bad things. Step two is improve slowly, slowly." He said, simplifying his philosophy.

Although no longer a monk, Kru Pedro follows the Brahman precepts: love, for all people regardless of race, rank or sex, compassion, self-respect, and thinking before you take action.

In addition to the Brahman precepts, Kru Pedro also follows the 5 precepts of Buddhism. Don't kill. Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't take intoxicants. And, don't commit adultery.

Every step of Kru Pedro's training is focussed on all of self development. Taking a holistic approach to training, Kruu Pedro said, "We train, mind, body, spirit and heart. The mind is trained through meditation and chanting. The heart is made better by surrounding yourself with flowers, candles, incense and water. Helping people, sharing, talking and giving are all from the heart. Muay Thai trains the body. We help the spirit by studying the Dharma and the teachings of Buddha."A student doesn't have to tell me he wants to improve. I can see it." He went on to say, "My teachers taught me never tell people what to do. You teach by example."

Pedro realizes the students live complicated lives, in a modern world. He doesn't expect them to shave their heads and go cold-turkey on all of their indulgences."I don't care if a student's Muay Thai is good or bad. I only care when he comes back to me and says, Kruu, you changed my life."

Muay sankha’s students mostly aren’t professional fighters and have very little or no interest in becoming professional fighters. They are university graduates in their late twenties and early thirties who worked professional jobs in their home country, saving their money to come and train with Kru Pedro.

Kru Pedro’s thought about trainers or teachers who have never fought:- "What you can do, what you can teach, and what you can apply may all be at different levels. Some people can be great at training and terrible in the ring. Some people can be great trainers but they were never great fighters." Angelo Dundee may or may not have even been a boxer but he is arguably the greatest trainer who ever lived. Angelo trained 15 world title holders, including the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali.

"People have a gift at birth, karma and they can develop. Their good deeds earn them merit, and help to determine their rebirth." Kru says "Some people, very special people are born with an ability to teach, without ever having been a fighter, but these are very rare."

A unique gift which the Thai people posses is a tremendous respect for the teacher. Spirit teachers, angel teachers, help to open the mind and help to develop their respect for the teachers and they learned more."

North East Asia Japan and Korea, where he had trained for the last seven months, are famous for a number of grappling arts, such as: judo, sumo, sirrum, jiu jitsu, shoot wrestling, submission wrestling, pancrase, and many more. But In Thailand, and most of Indochina, no actual grappling art seems to exist. Muay Boran contains joint locks and manipulations, leg and arm breaking techniques, clinch, sweep, throw, and stand-up grappling. But they cannot fight on the ground, and there doesn't seem to be a unique art of pure wrestling."The Thai arts were developed for soldiers to use on the battle field. Soldiers don't want to go to the ground because they can only fight one opponent at a time, and going to the ground would expose their back."

There are different styles of martial arts in China, Korea, and Japan but only one in Thailand:-

Kru says, "In Thailand the art was used for fighting in wars and in the ring. So, it basically had a straight line development, over a period of hundreds of years, focused on succeeding at these two goals."At some point, there was only one goal and Muay Thai was used, nearly exclusively, for the ring. It is also significant that the Theravada monks, in Indochina, were not allowed to practice martial arts. In the Mahayana countries, China, Japan, and Korea, the reverse was true."Monks were allowed to practice martial arts, but they weren't allowed to go to war or to fight in the ring. So, they began branching in countless directions of martial arts practice. Each branch became a separate martial art or form of martial arts."Today much of what is taught in traditional martial arts, such as Shaolin Kung Fu, Karate, or Hop Kido won't actually work in a real fight or in the ring. This is because the arts weren't actually designed for these applications.These traditional arts were probably viable martial arts at some time in the past. If everyone used Hop Kido strikes and kicks, for example, then Hop Kido blocks would work, but if we use modern techniques, such as Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, western wrestling or boxing, the traditional arts are less effective.

Kru’s point of view about Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) such as UFC and the Pride Fighting Championships.

"The MMA took the best of everything and combined it. If your goal is fighting, then Muay Thia is the best thing. So far, there is nothing better. Then combined with some wrestling and it is the most effective way to fight. But that only helps you achieve the goal of fighting noithing else."

"UFC is not art." Says Kru Pedro. "Because there is no spirit. When you get old, what then? I can practice till I am a hundred, because I am concerned about improving and doing the best that I can. So, when I am seventy I will do the best I can at seventy and that will be good enough." Kru explained that sport martial artists, such as in MMA or K-1, would reach a peak and then be in state of steady decline for the rest of their lives."Also, with MMA who are their students? Maybe they are bad people. I am very careful about who I will teach. If the student is not a good person, I give him his money back and send him away. But, if you are a professional trainer, you care only about winning. So, you will take the strongest student, even if he is not the best person.". In this way we maintain a good balance between tradition and effectiveness.

Kru Pedro was quick to point out that he didn't dislike the MMA or K-1. "Some people have found their way." He said. "Others are looking for the way. This is the same for teachers. If there are teachers looking for the way, I don't interfere. I was a fighter once. I hadn't found the way yet. It is ok. We will search and search until we find it. If they are teaching MMA or they are teaching everyone, including bad people, but they don't know any better yet, how can we say they are bad? How can we blame them? We have to allow them to search."